Discreet
has announced new releases of inferno 5, flame 8 and flint
8 systems. Demonstrated at SIGGRAPH 2002, the software releases
mark significant architectural, feature and workflow improvements
for visual effects artists, compositors and motion graphic
designers in television and film.

The company is presenting new technology demonstrations of
its Academy Award-winning flame 8 visual effects system at
SIGGRAPH 2002, a trade show that has played host to some key
moments in Discreet's history. The latest Discreet systems
include significant software architecture modifications designed
to dramatically improve post-production workflow by offering
digital artists increased freedom, flexibility and speed.
New features include support for mixed resolutions enabling
artists to combine various film, video, graphics and other
multimedia formats within one project at any resolution or
format; new timeline editing, enabling extended control over
the design of a visual effect; new support for Kaydara's FBX
file format, enabling import of more 3D data for better 2D/3D
integration; and hundreds of specific user-requested features
that underscore the richness of the toolsets.

In addition to the new releases, the company notes the continued
global success of combustion 2 software, which has been celebrated
by digital artists as one of the most powerful professional
desktop 3D compositing, paint and animation software tools
to hit the market in the past decade.

Released in January 2002, combustion
2 continues to gain worldwide market acceptance as the preferred
desktop 3D compositing, paint and animation solution for Macintosh
and Windows systems. Since its release, the software has received
numerous awards including MacAddict's "Freakin' Awesome"
award, AV Video Multimedia Producer's "Reader's Choice
Award," and Animation Magazine's "Seal of Excellence."

In addition, combustion has been used as part of the compositing
package for such high-profile films as Minority Report, XXX
and Stuart Little 2. As the software's popularity grows, more
and more users will reap creative and financial benefits from
the seamless integration of combustion 2 with Discreet's 3ds
max animation software, and fire 5 and smoke 5 nonlinear finishing/editing
systems, as well as many desktop nonlinear editing solutions
such as Apple Final Cut Pro and Avid systems.